Nomos 8

CIMMERIAN BOSPOROS, Pantikapaion. Circa 350-340 BC. Stater (Gold, 19mm, 9.19 g 12). Head of a satyr to left, with a pointed beard, a goat’s ear and a pug nose, wearing an ivy wreath. Rev. Π - Α - Ν Griffin prancing on a grain ear to left, his head facing and holding a spear in his jaws (its shaft forming the crossbar of the Α), and with his right forepaw raised. Cf. Franke/Marathaki 138, Gulbenkian 585-586 and Kraay / Hirmer 441. Leu 81 (2001) 124 (same dies). An extremely rare type, perhaps only the second example known. With scratches in the obverse field and probable traces of mounting, otherwise, extremely fine.

From a collection formed during the 1930s.

The only other known example of a Pantikapaion stater struck from this pair of dies appeared in Leu 81 as lot 124. That coin, part of the collection of R. Abecassis, had been acquired from Spink’s in the very late 1960s and was reliably said to be from the Empedocles collection (many Empedocles coins were bought by Cahn in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and then sold further). The satyr head on the obverse is particularly powerful and has very wild hair, rather similar to that found on the earliest staters of Pantikapaion, as Gulbenkian 581 and Prinkipo 166. A marginally more mannered head, though probably by the same engraver, can be seen on Gulbenkian 586 and KF 188.